We can see this as symbolic of our physical bodies, which follow a straight line from birth, through life, to death.

We are then reborn, though not in the same physical body.

But the evergreens continue through the winter, surviving what the deciduous cannot.

It is also symbolic of the soul, which keeps going through thick and thin.

The “immortal soul”, as people have often put it, thrives during the “winter” that is the time between the death of our physical body and our delivery into the next one.

Thriving Through Hardship

We keep coming back to the word “thrive”.

It is the key to the success of the evergreen.

Deciduous trees deal with winter by shutting down entirely, just getting through it and waiting out the hardship.

They do this very effectively, and very few trees are unable to grow again come spring.

So for the evergreen to justify keeping its foliage during the colder months, and therefore spending energy during the time where there is the least incoming energy available, it must do more than survive.

It has to thrive, to finish winter in a better position than it started.

There is essential symbolism to this. Many people, when faced with a difficult period in their life, take the philosophy of the deciduous tree.